


Harry v Feelings

by jarofactonbell



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, M/M, gryffindor kids are so annoying, harry is going through Gay Panic and they're not helping, i am not even the least sorry for it, is this not realistic, terrible self indulgent, thirteen year olds are so dramatic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2020-01-16 09:35:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18518755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jarofactonbell/pseuds/jarofactonbell
Summary: Oliver and Percy had flitted by to deliver their Disapproving Speech about the woes and dangers of falling in the trap of drunken and ill-advised romantic feelings for older wizards. Harry half tuned out of the litany of complaints and threats and warnings, to which he is fully aware of the moral complications of having feelings as a principle. But it's not as if he can stop now. Too late. He'll just have to die then.“Are you even listening?” Percy screeches, too similar to Molly at her most displeased.“Yes,” Harry says, you know, like a liar.Oliver makes a sound that is an iteration ofIf it weren't for the laws of this infirmary I would have wrung your neck with my bare handsand honestly Harry can empathise with him.





	Harry v Feelings

**Author's Note:**

> god told me that i like cedricharry now and i have to write about them so here we are. i do in fact accept criticism, including ones that tell me to delete

It starts out innocently enough. He's at dinner, his fellow Gryffindor brethren are there, surrounding him in mild safety and hopefully playful humiliation when the truth drops all over their dessert puddings, and he takes in several big breaths. He can do this. He keeps running into Death and studied under him for almost a year. He fought a giant literal snake. He can -

“So,” he stabs a fork into his pudding, because his legs won't stop jittering and Hermione has been shooting him concerned looks for the good half of dinner now. “Can I ask a stupid question of everyone here.”

It wasn't phrased like a question. Lavender turns, intrigued, not because she cares about his issues and who he is as a person, but because the chances of gossip and tearing him to shreds amongst her and her friends will be increased exponentially and she has the opportunity to do so _right here._

Dean houses a higher amount of human decency in his bones. He puts down his utensils, as one would when engaged in a serious conversation, and turns to him, over Neville and Fred's heads.

“What's going on, mate?” He asks. In his eyes, he also asks _Do you want to take this elsewhere, like in the Common Room where people won't spark up rumours of Harry Potter, wizarding martyr, local Seeker, indeed has Normal People Problems? He is not above us mortals after all._

Harry heard that in George's mocking imitation of Snape's sinister drawl and he's not quite sure if he needs that specificity in his head while he's going through the motions of public breakdown.

“Hold onto that thought, Harry, we'll get back to the tower and we'll talk, alrigh’, mate?” Seamus, good and ditzy and clueless Seamus, clasps him on the shoulder, and rises along with Parvati, pulling along the majority of the third years to the tower, in a semblance of normal departure, because you know thirteen year olds. They all leave in packs. For safety reasons. Because that dastard wizarding murderer is still out there, targeting baby wizardlings.

Or something. Seamus is very good at on the spot bullshit reasoning. He'll make something work.

The Weasleys all rise in a protective human wall fueled by the sheer will of protecting their stupid adopted Weasley brother from barreling head first into mortal danger for another year. Nobody bat an eye. Hermione totters along, arm in arm with Neville and Dean flanking both her sides, as Harry's entourage frog marches him to the Gryffindor Tower.

Once settled, and somebody had pulled out their stash of smuggled sweets from Hogsmeade, their grandmother's pantry, some Muggle sweet shops and the kitchen, because Harry's Panic Hour is everyone else's Entertainment Hour, so a good half of his house sprawls about, passively waiting for him to spill his latest woes onto the ugly carpet Neville made by commission of the Fat Lady.

She paid him in unlimited access to the Tower and unbidden passageways to get to class early. Now Neville is a master of rugs and sells them by trade. He’s dragging a piece all over his legs as the Society of Laugh at Potter gathers around Harry to listen to his tiding woes.

“Take your time, Harry,” Dean murmurs, half looking at him in all seriousness and love and support, and half glaring at Colin surreptitiously raising a _\- is that a cassette recorder -_ to record everything.

“We’re here to you, Harry,” Katie, though having at best, zero knowledge about the happenstance of how the Society of Laugh at Potter operates or how much Harry is a disaster in general, confirms, because she’s good and righteous and she cares about him as a person.

Unlike the Weasley twins who are directing a chorus of vague screeching about his woes of Human Feelings.

He had a speech ready. He even consulted with Hedwig extensively on it. He even went to Hannah Abbott, because he needs someone who doesn’t know him and the extent of his lack of heroism, to judge him fairly.

Really. It should be simple. It ought to be simple. He has a support network. He’s no longer alone with his thoughts agonising him in the dark of the night, he should be alright if he just -

“I,” he clears his throat, feeling distinctly emptied of words, “have romantic feelings for someone?”

For a while, only Fred’s front man singing of _Oh look at Harry Barry he’s gone off the rails again and went barmy_ punctuates the awkward awkward silence in the aftermath of his confession.

“Um,” Ron finally speaks, because he’s his best mate and his brother and they promise to never tear each other to shreds when the stupid hormones and feelings manifest in their pre-teen and teenage bodies. “Who, may I ask?”

Seeing Harry flounders for a reply, and seeing the sheer state of distress that he emanates, Dean and Hermione quickly rise and bluster replies that are chaotic mixtures of _it’s alright if you keep it secret_ and _don’t tell us if it distresses you,_ meanwhile Lee is choraling over everyone at the top of his lungs -

“Who is it? Potter’s got a crush?”

Harry had a speech, and he practiced, and he’s going to come right out and _be clean with it,_ like a bandaid, ripped right off the wound, come on Potter, you faced death, you saw a big snake the size of a dinner table wide, you can tell your house you like _him -_

“It’s someone in an older year level! I’m sorry! I can’t tell you guys anymore!”

Nobody boos. That loudly.

Oliver and Percy simultaneously disapprove, and Lee boos purely on knee jerk reflexes - it’s an odd way to react to nasty surprises, but he had ingrained it into his soul and body and only under very extreme emotional duress from whoever he is sitting with will this reflex be held in check.

“Have you two, like,” Lavender twirls a darning needle, property of a stressed out Ron who is making a Weasley jumper way too early for Christmas, “talk, before?”

Katie and Angelina look at Harry, hair and heads whipping in tandem, as if he had committed the most grievous sin in the Hogwarts Book of Student Morality Code by having crushes on people who he hasn’t had proper conversations with and most likely doesn’t care that he exists.

“Yes?” He tries.

It doesn’t sound very convincing.

He’s never been a very good liar.

Hermione opens her mouth, probably to give a painfully pragmatic advice, but is bowled over by Dean, who rises and shoos all the younger kids to bed, and begins herding the older kids to bed too, kicking Fred and George away to their ends of the tower.

“We’re going to bed,” he declares, backed up by Neville yawning. “And we will not speak of this between ourselves unless Harry calls another Support Group Meeting.”

Harry is not going to call for another meeting. He didn’t even call for this one. This bastard house just decided by themselves that there should be a meeting, and peer pressured him into confessing his embarrassing human feelings on Neville’s first attempt of a rug-making business trade as the portraits listen in too closely.

“Pretty sure that this is the opposite of a support group,” Seamus muses.

“We’ll see you tomorrow in Herbology, Harry,” Lavender and Parvati wave at him like they possess at best one body between the two of them, and march to their dorm.

Hermione and Ron remain, with the other three Weasley and Dean in a protective and vaguely concerned circle around him. He tries hard not to sigh out loud. Maybe he should’ve gone with Hufflepuff and be peacefully left alone to eat out his feelings in the kitchen instead.

Wait no. That would have been worse, actually. In Gryffindor, he has the chance to evade all of these people if he desires to, but in Hufflepuff, he wouldn’t be able to run away from the House’s prefect. _He_ would call him out on his rubbish and sit him down in the Hall and give him jasmine tea to calm him down or give him a handmade quilt. It would have been unacceptably awful and Harry would literally perish if that ever happens.

Fighting the Basilisk a second time would have been preferable next to whatever _this_ is.

“We’re here for you if you need us?” Percy clears his throat. The words are so forced Harry can feel the reluctance and burning hatred Percy reserves for Oliver in instilling the pressure to speak them unto Harry once he is forced to depart from the Common Room.

“Please don’t do that ever again,” Ron tells his brother. Percy tries hard to not sag in relief.

“Whoever it is, they’re probably better than you to induce,” Hermione waves a hand, gesturing vaguely to his lanky and underfed self, wizard robes too big on his frame, “feelings for all of _this_.”

“Thank you, Hermione,” he says, “your honesty is very much appreciated.”

She shrugs. She tried.

“My self-worth is not of the question here,” he puts it out there. “I know my own self-worth. Anyone else who say otherwise is not worth the time of my life. I don’t have any concerns. I’m just plagued by my own thoughts to actually do anything about my feelings.”

“As long as we are clear,” Dean claps his shoulder. “I’m still here if you need to vent. Or, well, whatever it is that you need.”

“Thank you,” he coughs, “and really, I'll figure it out. Thanks for all of this, everyone.”

Dean and Fred incredulously stare at each other as he said that. How terribly rude of them.

 

The next day, he runs into Justin, who, given the events of last year, is surprisingly friendly when he bounced away unharmed from a bodily collision with Harry, ditzy daisy darling.

“Harry!” He beams. “How was the talk with Hannah?”

He should have asked that Hannah keeps things in confidence between the two of them. That is great. Things cannot get any worse than how they are right now. Please, just curse him where he stands. He doesn't want or need to ask the inevitable. Is the whole of Hufflepuff now made aware of his mushy gushy feelings now?

“Great. Not terribly informative, but alright. Listen, did she tell you about it?”

Justin blinks. “No. She's not like that.”

“Then uh, how exactly _do_ you know?”

“Cedric was patrolling and saw you guys. Told me to check in with you and Hannah, see how you both are. You were shaking and everything, mate, so he was worried. You alright now, yeah?”

Harry screeches and slams his face onto a workbench, to the horror of Hannah and Ernie rushing to him.

 

Professor Sprout looms over him, everything that is non-threatening about her suddenly all too threatening and frightful.

“Tell me again, mister Potter, on _how exactly you fractured your entire jaw,_ in my _perfectly idiot proof classroom,_ where the only mortal danger you and your danger magnet self would be in direct harm to is Neville's swinging bucket, which I so kindly removed from your general vicinity at the start of the lesson?”

Harry would speak and defend himself, but he did just break his jaw rather spectacularly and in all dramatic shades of an overreaction. He cannot physically speak, not unless he values being in terrible and abject pain. Nobody in the classroom had the moral backbone of a chocolate eclair to laugh at him - rather, they've been rightfully concerned and rushing elsewhere to seek medical help to right his fractured jaw.

“To be fair, professor,” Justin tells her, gingerly inspecting the bruise that he accumulates on top of other bruises. “You can't prevent him from being a danger to himself.”

Sprout lets out such a devastated and specific sigh that points to _I am retiring right this instant_ and Harry can only shrug and offer an apologetic look to her, jaw still numbly flaring out pain.

“He's so dramatic,” he hears Lavender whispers to Ron.

“He's just doing his best,” his best mate whispers back, loyalty still rooted in his conviction. “Though don't tell anyone I agreed with you.”

Harry silently hexes Ron's shoelaces. When he trips as they leave to Divination, Harry's surprise is almost believable. Only Neville questions it, silently, to him, as they clear for lunch.

 

Madame Pomfrey gives him very specific sets of instructions to _not talk not move your jaw et cetera -_ as he is confined to mandatory bed rest until the medicine sets in.

An army of Gryffindor meddlers had filtered in and out of the infirmary, courtesy of knowing him for 3 years and running now, and how much he frequents the beds in the infirmary more often than his own bed in the Tower. Katie and Angelina brought him new clothes and glasses swipes, righting everything about his rumpled and jaw smashed appearance to seem less like he's been the subject of a centaur stampede. Various other well wishers brought flowers and books and scarves and tactfully no food, seeing as the no eating ban is very much active throughout the whole of the castle.

Oliver and Percy had flitted by to deliver their Disapproving Speech about the woes and dangers of falling in the trap of drunken and ill-advised romantic feelings for older wizards. Harry half tuned out of the litany of complaints and threats and warnings, to which he is fully aware of the moral complications of having feelings as a principle. But it's not as if he can stop now. Too late. He'll just have to die then.

“Are you even listening?” Percy screeches, too similar to Molly at her most displeased.

“Yes,” Harry says, you know, like a liar.

Oliver makes a sound that is an iteration of _If it weren't for the laws of this infirmary I would have wrung your neck with my bare hands_ and honestly Harry can empathise with him.

“Okay, you two, out!” The matron swings by, clipboard on hand to slap them out. “He has another visitor and you are overstaying your allotted time. Out!”

Oliver makes a gesture that is both concerned and threatening before pushing Percy out, passing by a golden head dipping inside, who flashes them a bright smile as he heads inside to Harry's bed.

The universe is, at this precise moment, actively plotting against him. That's it. There's no other way.

There is _no way in his worn through socks_ that Cedric Diggory, the pride and joy of Hogwarts, is sitting by the sickbed of a runty thirteen year old brat and smiling gently as he gives out a soft neck pillow to him.

Harry makes a sound that is half him choking on his spit and hopefully dying and half thankful.

Since it's all air anyways, Cedric takes it as affirmation of gratefulness and Harry had never wanted to die any more than on that bed, him awkwardly existing, in the presence of paragon itself who is gazing upon him softly and fondly.

“Be more careful, alright, mate? You got the kids all worried for you,” Cedric tells him, and rises in fluid grace that Harry dreams of attaining. “Everything's all good now?”

Everything is not all good. It had, in fact, gotten worse.

But Harry nods, hiding his face behind the pillow anyways.

Cedric beams, pulls the blankets a little bit higher on his body, and turns to leave, waving as he goes.

Harry would very much like to _die, please._

 

“So how did you tell Seamus about,” he swallows, hands fluttering vaguely in front of his face. “Things.”

“I use my words,” Dean drily informs him. “Normally that wields fruition.”

“And if they don't?”

“Well,” Dean muses, “there's this memory deletion spell. Wanna learn it?”

 

Harry doesn't own up to his feelings, rightfully.

He ends up doing it the year after. A whole entire year of awkwardly avoiding Cedric, and then running smack bang into him at the World Cup and then all the shenanigans afterwards and he chooses the worst time possible to blurt -

“Hey, um, I like your face. It has...great facial structures. Yes.”

Cedric blinks, and tilts his head to the side, confusion colouring his pale cheeks.

“I'm sorry, Harry, what -”

“Please, please don't hate me, I really would like to hold your hands and go to Hogsmeade with you.”

“Oh,” Cedric says, then smiles. It's the equivalent of being knocked by a cursed Bludger out to kill. Or a very long fall from his broom. Exactly that feeling, but multiplied.

“Alright. I'd love that.”

Harry is still convinced the universe is out here actively plotting his demise. He can sense it.

But for now, he takes Cedric’s proffered hand with a tremor in his, and squeezes back as Cedric pulls him along to his carriage on the train.

**Author's Note:**

> please find me on these social media platform and scream cedricharry at me: [twitter](https://twitter.com/tacobell_com), [curious cat](https://curiouscat.me/jenny_benny) and [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/tacomakers-central)


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